1: Out of the Shadows

chance encounter like this. Around two thousand and nine, the rumors started to spread stories of a masked vigilante jumping out of the shadows to help the citizens of Seattle. People kept seeing this masked man patrolling the streets at night. One person said he stopped a mugging. Someone else caught a glimpse of him sprinting through the backstreets downtown. Rumor had it he even stopped a terrorist attack. The accounts

all said he was tall and pretty ripped. He wore a hooded rubber mask that covered his eyes like the batman cowl. He had black gloves and a black chest plate molded into a six pack with a gold chevron across the chest and an American flag on his bicond. When Dan tried to tell his friends about what happened the night he witnessed the attempted car breaking, they were skeptical. People are saying, no way, dude, no way. They're like, oh, you were probably drunk. But Dan wasn't drunk. Well, maybe

he was, but what he saw was real. The rooms were true. There was a dark knight out there patrolling the streets of Seattle, and he called himself Phoenix Jones. An ordinary citizen becomes a dark knight known as Phoenix Jones, self appointed crusader, Phoenix Jones, Phoenix Jones, Phoenix Jones, Phoenix Jones, Phoenix Jones. A real life superhero. Superman can fly, Batman has his gadgets, Spider Man has his webs and super sharp senses, and then there's Phoenix Jones. Maybe not quite Superman,

but an extraordinary one. Real life superheroes are people who, inspired by comic book characters, create their own superhero persona, make their own costume, sometimes weapons, and then head out into the streets to fight crime in the real world. And Phoenix Jones at his peak, was the most famous of all the real life superheroes. His goal was to strike fear into the hearts of Seattle's criminals, but in it was Phoenix who was led away in handcuffs, caught

with four grams of suspected cocaine. So how did Seattle's greatest independent crime fighter end up getting busted on drug charges? Well, it depends on who you believe. Phoenix says he's the victim of a corrupt and ineffective police department that snagged him in a classic case of entrapman and the police, while they have their own version of the story. So what exactly is real and the world of real life superheroes. Is Phoenix Jones a shining example of a brave citizen

fighting for justice? Or is he a misguided vigilante who used a superhero persona to disguise his own criminal activity. I'm going to take inside the world of real life superheroes as I try to answer these questions. Along the way, there will be danger and heartbreak, friendship and betrayal, and of course all the elements you would find in any story about criminals, drugs and violence, and a good chase

scene here and there. And maybe, if you're like me, you'll come out on the other side of this adventure, with a deeper understanding of these people who are often treated as a joke. Going into this story, I never thought I would identify with the type of person who puts on a homemade suit and claims to be a superhero. It's hard to take someone like that seriously. It's much

easier to dismiss them as crazy or naive. But now that I've gotten to know some of the men and women who call themselves real life superheroes, I'm starting to think maybe it's the other way around. Maybe we should question our beliefs about who the real heroes are. I'm David Weinberg and from the team's at Novel and I heart Radio. This is the Superhero Complex, Episode one out

of the Shadows. I can only imagine what it must have been like for those lucky few people in the midst of distress who were suddenly saved by a real life superhero. And just like in the movies, the police and the citizens of Seattle wanted to know who is this masked crusader chasing down bad guys in the streets. Phoenix broke up a brawl and one of the guys churned on him. Phoenix called, put the guy in a hold,

and waited for police to arrive. What the police saw when they arrived was a guy who looked a lot like Batman. Phoenix clearly put a lot of work into his costume. By the way, he hates it when you call his superhero get up a costume. I find it offensive, like ridiculous. Phoenix prefers the term super suit. It's bulletproof, it can't be lit on fire. It has a heart sensor monitor in it. It's connected to fucking WiFi. If someone calls Phoenix, it connects to a headset in his helmet.

My suit does its job. It's made of de three oh non Anttonian fluid. That means it's soft to touch, but it gets harder when you hit it with force. My suit is so awesome that the government of Seattle said I couldn't wear it anymore because it gave me too much protection if they decided they wanted to get me. Before long, Phoenix became a local celebrity. Several nights a week he carried out patrols of downtown Seattle, where he'd searched for criminals to apprehend or those in need, and

people came up to him and asked for photos. Reporters flew in from all over the world to interview him. Writer and broadcaster John Ronson even did a profile of him for g Q. Phoenix cent go to Bowtown to break up a kind of crack deals. There was about five or six different groups of crack dealis on different street corners, and they came back and walked towards us, and Phoenix said, are we standing? Are we leaving? They all said was standing. It helped that Phoenix had something

the other superheroes and the comic books didn't. His own media strategy. He filmed his exploits and posted the videos online. He even added his own commentary, All douchebags depicted in these videos are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. One thing's for sure, it's fun as hell to watch videos of Phoenix taking down bad guys. One of my favorites is a video titled Phoenix Jones versus Helicopter Dick, which is a surprisingly accurate description of what

went down that night. Phoenix rolls up to a bar where something bad is clearly going down. According to a caption in the video, a guy has exposed himself to some women at the bar, and then attacked a bouncer, and Phoenix is talking to the bouncer While they're chatting, the suspect appears, pulls his dick out again and starts

twirling it while yelling Helicopter Dick. Phoenix rushes over and grabs the guy by the ear like an angry father disciplining his kid, and drags him down the sidewalk until someone steps in and pulls them apart, but Helicopter Dick, who's clearly drunk, lunges at Phoenix. Phoenix takes a step back and says to the guy, if you do that again,

I will pepper spray. Eventually, the police come and cuff Propeller Phenis and load him into the back of a squad car, while Phoenix has a quick chat with one of the officers, telling him that he has the whole thing on video and can hand it over to them for evidence. Phoenix says, when you start showing your drunk two girls, that's a different kind of sick and you end up in a police car. He signs off with his signature raised have a good night and I'll see

you in the streets. Not all the videos that Phoenix posts are about crime fighting. Sometimes he makes videos hyping himself up. You want to blaze now, man, I'm already blazing blaze an attractive son. Wow, got my gold spiny glue boots on? How could you beat that? Wasna? Yeah? Man, seriously, I make Elton John looks straight right now. That's the sub he gets vulnerable. I wanted to be a superhero my whole life. The first year fighting crime, I was arrested.

I've been shot, I've been stabbed. So many bad things happened to me for something that I believed in. And this is real as it gets. He buys ice cream for kids. The ice cream Shucks showed up in my neighborhood, so I bought all the kids ice cream because I'm rich now so I can do crazy things. And even if he is the self proclaimed greatest living superhero and a model of perfection, he still likes to sing in

the car like us Mortal Superman, god Man. I'm only one, and it seems that being a superhero comes with perks. He's landed several sponsorship deals with local health and fitness brands. After a hard workout, it's pretty much only long thing that your boy needs and thank god they gave me the Secret Souls epic smoothie Baby. He even got invited on a press tour to England to promote a new

model of cell phone. Phoenix became a sensation. He seemed to tap into people's mistrust of the institutions that are supposed to keep us safe. But long before his drug charges, Phoenix Jones was not popular with Seattle's law enforcement. In one video, Phoenix comes across a bartender on the street who says a guy assaulted him. Phoenix sees the suspect in a bloody shirt outside the bark. Don't give me a nine one one call police, thank you, and Chase ensues.

The suspect hides in the back of a truck and Phoenix and his sidekick pretend that they don't know where he is while they call the police. But when the police arrive on the scene, they see more piste off at Phoenix than the alleged criminal. Um gonna talk to me, Phoenix tells the police, Yes, video, that would be useful evidence, but we have to give you a statement in our video, and they don't seem interested. Well, could I could? I could have an Internet number, though, please, because I'd like

to file all my stuff. No, it's gonna work. The video stops. Text appears on the screen, which criticizes the Seattle Police for their incompetence and says that Phoenix is going to file a formal complaint. It ends, quote, it is the job of the police to arrest and investigates suspected criminals. Your feelings about my protective outfit and your politics should not impair your legal obligation to the people. Sincerely, Phoenix Jones. This scenario plays out time and time again

on Phoenix's YouTube channel. Whenever he encounters a criminal, he detains them, calls one, and waits for the police to arrive on the scene, the same police that he says are about to get him. I've been arrested a hundred eighteen times. I've only had four charges ever stick, and none of the charges of the Phoenix Jones have ever stuck because I'm flawless at that job. The police have repeatedly told Phoenix to leave the crime fighting to them. Unless you are the victim of a crime, you are

not allowed to corner somebody holds somebody. You cannot do that because then it becomes a crime where you are the suspect. And they have also taken to the media to discourage copycat superheroes. Well, they say it's not illegal to dress up and calls him and patrol, but they're asking the superheroes to just call nine. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the dislike between the police and Phoenix is mutual. The police are just a gang man. I mean, I hate to

be like that, but they're a gang. And then people are gonna get mad at me for this, but that's because you're stupid. As Phoenix got more famous, the tension between him and the police escalated. When it finally boiled over, it's spilled out of the superhero world and into his civilian life with disastrous consequences. But we'll get to all that later. First we've got to meet Phoenix's superhero ancestors.

That's coming up. Phoenix Jones was not the first person to dawn a mask an attempt to become a real superhero, but it's hard to know for sure who the first the original real life superhero was. Some say it was Master Legend, and that's a lesson for all those people who like to abuse little kids. In the nineties, he was a fixture on the streets of New Orleans, handing out water to the homeless in a cape and stormtrooper vest with long hair sticking out from under an old

army helmet. And he's still at it today in Florida, though his methods are questionable. Here he is shooting eggs out of a cannon he made out of PBC pipe and spray painted silver. Master Legend hard boil the eggs. There there it is the yep splattered. He's one of the only real life superheroes who claims to have supernatural powers, super strength, speed, and the ability to see the future. There's even a TV show about his life, The Legend of Master Legend. Who are you? I'm Master Legend. I'm

a real life superhero registered in two counties. I love Master Legend, but the idea that he fights crime was beer gut and goofy outfit does seem a bit preposterous, more like a piece of performance art than an effective crime fighter. And before Master Legend was Master Legend, there was Willie Perry, a k a. The Birmingham Batman. Willie drove around Birmingham, Alabama, and a souped up nine thunderbird with a Batman license plate and rescue ship painted on

the hood. Mostly he focused on helping stranded motorists car he'll flitch out, I didn't. He was fair and I was stranded. I was only how me and my kids who won't stopped to him, And along came It's strange m And in nineteen sixty Chicago, a school teacher called Jim Phillips called himself the Fox. It said that he took his name from the Fox River, which runs through

northern Illinois west of Chicago. He defended his community against the heartless corporations that were dumping toxic waste into rivers. His calling card was a note signed with a fox face and the place of the letter Oh. Legend has it he'd canoe down the river to put caps on drainage pipes that were releasing pollutants into the water. Once he even dumped fifty pounds of sewage from Lake Michigan into the office of the company responsible for its sort

of one man guerrilla force against pollution. He has become a local hero sorts. And then there are groups like the Guardian Angels, a nonprofit started in New York City in nineteen seventy nine by Curtis Sliwa, who recently ran from mayor of New York City. We are going to do what we can in a nonviolent way, without having any weapons available to us whatsoever, to curb this violent

crime that is on a continuous round page. The Guardian Angels started by patrolling the subway in New York, a bit like Phoenix Jones on the streets of Seattle, and their numbers grew. Today there are thousands of members spread out in chapters around the country. Also like Phoenix, the Guardian Angels prided themselves on their ability to stop crime without carrying guns, but there are lots of examples of groups who did arm themselves, like the Minutemen, for example.

A few different groups using that name have been around since the early two thousands, and they execute armed border patrols looking for undocumented immigrants. They named themselves after the civilian militia groups who fought during the American Revolutionary War. Robert Crook's sixty seven year old retire reef less Vegas patrols the US Mexican border and treks what he calls invaders and enemies of the United States of America did not come in this way and if they do, I'll

be your wait for watching. And long before any of these groups, there was the Bald Knaubers, this group that wore masks and executed vigilante justice in the wild West. T. Crulos is the author of the book Heroes in the Night Inside the real life superhero Movement. I put a research into any sort of vigilante movement that I thought might be sort of a president for the real life superheroes. The Bald Nabbers dispensed vigilante justice in Missouri from nine.

They took their name from a mountaintop where they met. Their leader was a bar owner named Nathaniel and Kenny. They wore soup coats backwards and donned homemade masks with devil horns protruding from the top and red and white stitching around their eyes and mouth. It must have been a terrifying sight to see them tearing across the plains on horseback with their whips in hand, looking to kill suspected horse thieves. Each member of the group lived by

this oath. Our purpose is to punish the evil doer among us. The courts have failed us, we administer punishment to those the arm of the law cannot or will not reach in doing this, we do not break the law because we have no evil intent. So they started out by, you know, hanging people that were cattle thieves or stuff like that. But as their rain sort of went on, they became a little bit more petty, like you could be visited by the Bald Knobbers and whipped

if you were accused of being ordinary. And it wasn't just people with an irritable disposition that the Knobbers went after. Back then, many of the poorer couples in the community couldn't afford to pay marriage license fees, so they were technically not married, but lived together as though they were. The bald Knobbers believed these unwed couples were living in sin, and so they went around beating them. One day, some of the Knobbers set out to kill a man who

criticized them. They ended up killing two of his family members in a shootout, and they were jailed. Their leader was also killed, and, as Crulos writes in his book, the condemned Knobbers were hung on a poorly constructed gallows in a scene described as gruesome. The knobbers feet dragged on the ground as they writhed in pain. The gallows were quickly fixed and the knobbers were hung again. It's kind of an example of vigilanteism that spun out control.

One of the main arguments I've heard people make against the real life superhero movement is that they are nothing more than modern day bald knobbers, vigilantes, people who take the law into their own hands. But Phoenix and the other real life superheroes I've met don't consider themselves vigilantes because when they apprehend a criminal, they immediately call and hand them over to the police so they can be

prosecuted within the legal system. In fact, Phoenix argues that it's the police, not superheroes like him, that act like they're above the law. It's one of the reasons he's not a fan of the cops. The job for the police union is to make sure the police officers do not get in trouble, right, they have the inner policing system. All the inner policing system is run by police. There's

no outside accountability in the police department at all. There are lots of examples throughout American history where the police have often been protected from punishment by the very system that is supposed to keep them in check. So where does that leave Phoenix Jones. Well, it's complicated. He relies on the police to complete the work he started, but he despises the way they do their job. Phoenix isn't alone in his standoff with the cops though, After all,

what's a superhero without sidekicks? That's coming up, you know how. In the Batman series, Commissioner Gordon shined a giant bat chick spotlight into the sky whenever a hero was needed to save Gotham City the bat signal. Well, Phoenix Jones never had one of those, but his rise to fame turned him into the human uivalent of that call to action.

Because as news stories about Phoenix spread around the world of him stopping car thieves and breaking up street fights, regular citizens were inspired to join him in his fight against evildoers, and before long, Phoenix had a crew of masked Avengers who fought crime by his side. Together, this band of ragtag heroes, former soldiers, reformed criminals, aspiring activists, and medics all patrolled the streets of Seattle under the leadership of Phoenix, striking fear into the heart of Seattle's

criminal underworld. They called themselves the rain City Superheroes, and the media ate it up. Brain City superhero crime fighting movement, life superhero live superheroes, real life superheroes, Digilanni crime stoppers in Seattle, the Patrol Seattle, looking for crime, prepared to fight it? Are they for real? To find find out more about Phoenix, I needed to speak to the one group of people who knew his crime fighting days better

than anyone else. Shirt left. When you watch any video of the rain City Superheroes on Patrol, it's easy to see where they got so much media coverage. They are a spectacle. Phoenix wears his black and gold super suit and he does look like a superhero from a movie, but the rest of the crew looks a lot more. How can I put this without sounding mean ridiculous. There's Midnight Jack, who claims to be a former gang member with a new set of skills charity outreach, homeless hand out,

animal rescue, and pedophile investigations. He's wearing regular street clothes, black cargo pants and a black and gray fleece and a black spiderman mask, basically the kind of kid would wear on Halloween. There's Ghost, a veteran who joined Phoenix's band of crime fighters after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq. I put on my white bandana for the first time and someone tried to stab someone else and I did a palm strike right in their diaphragm.

They collapsed, and then I was ghost. He looks like a waiter who just got off work. He's wearing black slacks and a white button down collared shirt and a black ski mask. There's Phoenix's girlfriend, Purple Rain. She's wearing a cross between a leather jacket and purple spandex, with a black leather beret and a purple mask that looks like the one that's Scorpion from Mortal Kombat wears. I helped up from the sidelines, kind of behind the scenes, and then it was only a matter of time before

I took on a mouth with my own. There's Evocatus, another war van. He's in black motorcycle leathers and a silver mask that covers his entire head. He looks like a cross between a medieval night and a member of daft punk. At least once a week, ups, are you a cop? And just like, why what cop do you know that? Looks like this but okay. And then there's Phoenix's best friend and right hand man. Uh, my name is El Caballero. About protection and safety from human beings.

L Caballero looks like a cross between seventies era Hugh Hefner and a Mexican luchador. He wears a purple top that straddles the line between cape and vest. It has a purple fur collar and giant fur covered cuffs and a gold embroidered dragon on the back. And he's wearing black bell bottoms with a tactical belt similar to Batman's. And to top it all off, a red and purple sequined lucid or a mask with some sort of pyramid looking emblem that he's sewed onto the forehead. This is

the camera guy. You make sure he does not get punched. It is very hard not to laugh out loud when you see them together. You should be lookout. The video footage of their patrol has the feel of a mockumentary about nerds who think they are warriors, and this is pretty typical of the type of media coverage that the rain City superheroes got at the peak of their fame. A mix of look at these goofballs and a heartwarming

snapshot of some passionate do gooders. And while it is easy to mock them, you can see in the videos of their patrols that Phoenix and his crew are actually doing good in their community. They help stranded motorists and make sure drunk people get home safe. Are you a cap? Did you get my friends a ride? Back? Down? Here? They administer first aid to the injured, and sometimes they save lives. A man was getting violent with security at a nightclub. He proceeded to get violent with me and

my group of friends. Here's a clip from the daytime talk show Life Changers hosted by Dr Drew featuring a guy named Fabio who says that Phoenix saved his life. Phoenix ran in and Pepper spread the guy and diffuse the entire situation. Dr Drew then turns to Phoenix and Purple Rain, who are seated on stage and their superhero suits. How did you hear about it? Had you? We have eaten dinner in the restaurant or you know? Most situations

aren't like this one. I happened to be on top of the parking garage across the street and I saw the thing. That thing happened, and I was able to There's like a little pole and I was able to jump from the top should be the pole down and get into the situation, racing over rooftops, descending drain pipes, icing bad guys. The rain Ceedy Heroes had a good

run from They were a fixture of downtown Seattle. They were local celebrities, but a lot of the media coverage felt like it was laughing at them rather than with them. But it also legitimized them. They formed the type of bond that comes from being in the foxhole together, risking their lives for a righteous cause. But it didn't last, and when things went wrong, it seems to have started

Phoenix's down all. Maybe the group's demise was inevitable given Phoenix's belief that he is the only one who is a real superhero. I'm not a part of that group at all. Like me, I'm a crime fighter. I'm a mass adventurer. That's what I do. You know what I mean. You guys are playing superhero. I am a superhero. I'm the world's first legally defined superhero. It's in legal documents. The FBI has me as a superhero I'm not playing a game. You guys got dressed up. I put on

my uniform. It's different. I tried to verify Phoenix's claim, but when I asked the FBI about this, they said, the FBI does not provide endorsements. There's no single moment in time you can point to and say this was the day the rain City Superhero Movement died. Each member of the team had their own reasons for quitting, but they all blame Phoenix in one way or another. Here's Midnight Jack. Phoenix Jones was so hooked on the attention.

It was so hooked on the media following and the celebrity status and things like that that it it was a problem, which kind of led to a lot of us kind of losing respect for him and uh and wanting to be disassociated from things. Um. Admittedly I was the last person to leave him, but you know, I mean, when you're in a cult, you don't necessarily understand you're in a cult. And and that's really what rain City

was at the end, was a cult. Midnight Jack was not the only one referred to the rain City Superhero Movement as a cult. Here's Evocatus. There's one person in charge fundamentally, for better or for worse. If you see anything that challenges this person, it all falls apart. If you question it or ask for further clarification or anything you say, it all falls apart and you were ostracized. It's cult like in the we had a cult leader. I guess today none of the rain City superheroes who

I spoke to are on good terms with Phoenix. I think Phoenix Jones sociopath is what. I think he's a master gas lighter. I think Phoenix Jones is a liar. He pawned a bunch of team equipment for drugs. Dude, this this is the mafia. This is this is what a mafia does. At first, the rain City superheroes were inspired by Phoenix, and they were willing to risk their lives because they believed in his mission. But over time they came to see Phoenix Jones as less than a

hero and more of a fraud. So how did it all go so wrong? How did the world's greatest real life superhero fall so spectacularly from grace, alienated from his crime fighting friends, A defender of justice who you is to chase down drug dealers, but ended up pleading guilty to a drug charge. Over the course of the last year, I've spent a good amount of time with real life superheroes.

I've patrolled the streets with them, seeing firsthand with their version of crime fighting looks like, and I've gotten to know the people behind the masks. I have to say, it's been a wild ride and disorienting. At times, I've been convinced that Phoenix Jones is an egomaniac who uses his superhero persona as a means to enrich himself. Other times, I've felt that Phoenix is the only sane person in a society that has lost its goddamn mind. Everyone in

Phoenix's orbit has their own version of what happened. Each of them is the hero of their own story. Honestly, I'm still trying to make sense of it all. You never know what anyone says. It's true, ever, right? You should always know that. So what do you say? We've fire her up the old batmobile, take it for a spin. We've got a lot of superheroes to meet and the truth to uncover. Oh and I forgot to mention the real life supervillains, So you better bring your grappling hook

because we might get into some sticky situations. The Superhero Complex is hosted and written by Me, David Weinberg and reported by Me, Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornham. Production from Mamalia Shortland and Caroline Thornham. Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien and David Waters are executive producers. Fact checking by Andrew Schwartz. Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and Charlotte Wolf. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson.

Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Original music is composed by Paul How's It Special thanks to Peter Tangan, the Unplanned America Team, Willard Foxton, Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvelle Beth and Macaluso, Rin Rosenbaum, Shelby Shenkman, and all the team at U t A. For more from novel, visit novel dot Audio